In the backyard of war

Francesca Borri is an Italian journalist and writer. She is a regular contributor to Modern Times Review.

As the peace efforts between Israel and Palestine have come to a halt, the Palestinians in Nabi Saleh dream about access to the Mediterranean Sea – still out of their reach.

All of a sudden – a flash. A grenade blows up. It’s the beginning of February and the dead of night, when the army swoops in. No one looks surprised. «Usually they come a little later,» says Manal Tamimi – a well-known Palestinian female activist. From behind a window, and with an M16 gun sight aimed at her direction, she starts live streaming for a local Palestinian TV station.

Six or seven soldiers jump out of their armoured vehicles and start to scatter around the street. They fire into the air, stun bombs – bombs that daze and duzzle, not hurting anyone. Suddenly there is tear gas everywhere, and immediately on the roofs and in the courtyards, you see the silhouettes of Palestinians – replying back with slings and rocks. But the raid seems to have no clear target. The soldiers are not searching for anyone in particular. They don’t enter any house. Everybody seems relaxed.

«First they shoot you, then they save you […] It makes no sense.» – Bilal Tamimi

On the night tables in their bedrooms, Palestinians keep both an alarm clock and a gas mask. «At the end of the day, you are safer in jail than outside,» Manal says.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=46&v=E4FM9WGRWdQ

She speaks from experience. Like most Palestinians, she has been arrested several times. But from the water taps in her house, water hardly comes out. Water is now a desired resource that is being fought over in Palestine – equal to that of land. When talking about the prison, Manal sarcastically remarks: «Great showers.»

The new Malala

Nabi Saleh is an ordinary group of houses in the middle of the West Bank, but the area has been in the headlines worldwide for months; it is here that the 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi – after her cousin ended up in coma with a bullet in the head – noticed a soldier in front of her home. While telling him to leave, she started hitting and punching him, and eventually, she slapped him. It was December 18. A few hours later, the army came back and took her away. Since then, Ahed has been in jail – charged with assaulting security forces. For international activists, she is the new Mandela, or the new Malala.

(FILES) In this file photo taken on December 28, 2017 Palestinian Ahed Tamimi (C), 16-year-old prominent campaigner against Israel’s occupation, appears at a military court at the Israeli-run Ofer prison in the West Bank village of Betunia.Tamimi who was arrested after a viral video showed her hitting two Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank has reached a plea deal with prosecutors to serve eight months in jail, Human Rights Watch said on March 21, 2018. / AFP PHOTO / Ahmad GHARABLI

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